Doctor Death's Curious Case
by Audacia's Quill
Summary: Harry Potter has a most unusual job, involving dead people and curses, mainly dead people though. When his job takes him to Japan, he takes on a whole new brand of magic, especially as he's given a nameless Pharaoh. Slash, Full Warnings Inside
1. Doctor Death's Arrival

**The Shadow Doctor**

**- - - A. U, Post DH, ignores parts of the epilogue (like HP/GW for a start!)! Slash! Future Lemon, M rating for that, and for the following: bleak/black-humor, death, desecration of the dead and much more. (also, this is like my "tea time update" story, I'll do it when on my breaks, when bored and have no inspiration for anything else, so I don't even know if it'll go anywhere, should it not, I may even make it adoptable in the future)**

**HP/YGO [Pairings Undecided]. **Summary: Harry Potter has a most unusual job, involving dead people and curses, mainly dead people though. When his job takes him to Japan, he takes on a whole new brand of magic, testing just how far he's prepared to go in his field.

* * *

><p>Chapter One<p>

"Oh Merlin Harry! That's disgusting - how can you work around those all day?" Hermione said, as both she and her husband Ron caught up with Harry in Hog's Head, for their yearly catch-up.

"With ease, I can drown the smell out with my dinner if I leave the door open," Harry shrugged, "-it's not as bad as you think," he insisted as he pointed his wand at the mug of butterbeer in his hands and cast a cooling charm on it.

"They're dead!" said Hermione with a sickly look "-when you said 'Cursebreaking' I thought you meant what Bill does, with wards and such,"

Ron nodded "-yeah, gotta say mate, we didn't think you'd be doing this. I mean, you could be one of those millionaire playboy types-" at Hermione's frown, he quickly added "-or a professional Quidditch player, an auror - hell, I heard the division of Hitwizards was hankering for you!" he slugged down his own butterbeer in an animal-like fashion that made Hermione wrinkle her nose in distaste.

"Oh Ronald," she muttered, Harry resisted an urge to smirk, some things would never change about his friends, it's why he liked to catch up, it kept him sane in his line of work.

"Bill was dead excited for a bit, thought you'd be working in his division," said Ron, wiping foam from his lip with his sleeve, making Hermione grimace.

"Sorry 'bout that, I do see him sometimes though, sometimes he's the one bringing the stiffs in," laughed Harry lightly.

Ron shivered "What exactly is it that you do with those dead blokes?" he asked.

"Well, it starts with the occasional muggle archaeologist cocking up and having themselves caught in some ancient curse, so sometimes they're brought into me alive," shrugged Harry, who then straightened at the serious look he got off his two friends.

"Sometimes I break the curse in time," said Harry quietly "-sometimes I don't,"

"Now the goblins have me doing that and some bloody mortician-like work," he grimaced "-can't say I wanted it, still don't, that said - it's not as horrifying as it sounds,"

"Well, what kinda stuff is it, if it isn't ward-breaking?" asked Hermione.

"Well generally it's breaking the curses around sarcophagi, - err - mummy cases, Ron," elaborated Harry "-which means working around the stiffs, so they can be sent to the museum-shippers,"

"Sometimes the cartouche - err, the thing with the mummy's name on it Ron, is too damaged to tell who it was. The body gets moved over to the Japanese, they have better muggle technology to help identify the stiff, but I gotta make sure the actual body doesn't have a protective curse on it," Harry finished his drink with a final slurp.

"Tricky bastards, them Pharaohs," he stretched his arm and back out against the old chair and ordered another round.

"So I hear," said Hermione, disproving of his tone, but didn't mention anything of it.

"If them lot can't identify it, they call me in again and I gotta do a month's worth of magic on the body so they can get a DNA sample," said Harry.

"Dee- Ennn- Aaay?" said Ron with a frown of confusion.

"I'll explain it later," sighed Hermione.

" 'Course sometimes I have inferi on my hands or some other undead nasty thanks to either a twat of an archaeologist who can't read warning signs, or a wizard that bites off more then they can chew. If done properly, they shouldn't need me at all," snorted the ex-war vet.

"-and you literally break the reanimation curse down?" said Hermione, catching on.

"Pretty much,"

"Blimey, that's why the papers are calling you 'Potter the Necromancer'," laughed Ron.

"I preferred 'Doctor Death' had a nice ring to it - surprised 'doctor' came into wizard vocabulary though," shrugged Harry, who was used to healers.

"Times change," said Ron wisely.

"Indeed they do,"

* * *

><p>The start of the following work week had not been a particularly great one, firstly he nearly got to his apparition point to Gringotts late. He was pretty sure that the on-site healer, Healer Bryan was the one stealing his lunch out of the fridge, he also had the last pot of coffee and did <em>not <em>make a new one. There was also the tiny matter of the fact that he was being dragged out of his usual work areas that pulled him between England and Egypt, to go all the way to Japan. It wasn't entirely extraordinary, seen as some of the stiffs Harry had to deal with had been sent there, but rarely did the Usada Research Facility need to call for his help after the bodies were sent over.

It turned out, that it was not the Usada Research Facility.

"The Tomb Keepers have been shipped an unidentifiable Pharaoh," Shanktooth, his goblin superior had said to him coldly, part of him gleeful that Potter was so irritated.

"Why aren't the Usada Research Facility dealing with it?" snapped Harry, the only person in his division that showed any lip to the goblins, which was probably why they liked him, he never stood down to them, except when absolutely forced too in the presence of foreign nation figures, which came rarely.

"Because the body is reanimated," said Shanktooth "-not fully, not sentient, but enough that it cannot be handled by muggles,"

"So what, twitching every now and then? Like a magical cadaveric spasm?" he said, locking up his case of personal belongings, his work had him living out of an enchanted trunk a lot.

"Yes, and as it's been rotting for a few thousand years, it cannot speak," sneered the goblin "-you need to do whatever it is you do and either make it acceptable for muggle testing, or identify it yourself. It's a big project that I expect may take months, and as most of the upper KV area in the Valley of Kings is done, the digs will be taking a year break while the SCA does it's annual checks, and we sort the appropriate funding to continue. Everything is now in the hands of the Cursed Objects division, and sorting out the dregs of the last project," said the goblin, tired of explaining things to Potter, who was a rather renowned ball-buster when it came to demanding the facts of where he was going.

Not that Shanktooth could blame him, goblins made a habit of screwing wizards over for sheer amusement alone.

"You have your usual office with a lab - it's all been set up close to the museum, the appropriate Tomb Keeping family has also kindly offered to help in anyway they can," the goblin gave him a terse look "-and it's _their _Pharaoh, so please be nicer to them, then you were to the last muggle lot,"

Harry was surprised 'nicer' was in Shanktooth's vocabulary.

"I'll see you next year then at most, boss," said Harry, stepping to the Japan apparation point.

"I'll see you if you're alive, Potter!" said Shanktooth, as cheery as a goblin could manage.

It was a pretty standard 'goodbye' between the two, and considering Harry's history, was rather appropriate.

* * *

><p>They had expected someone older, someone with a beard and with experience, wrinkles and snappishness equal to that of the goblins. To their surprise, they only received someone filling one of those categories. Unfortunately due to the timezone, Harry had arrived as the sky was darkening and was cursing all the way to his regular Japan-situated office. Bloody loud gamer-kids outside by his window as usual, and he had to go to the local museum before closing time and have his brief overview talk with the Tomb Keeping family. Harry snorted, he didn't envy them - protecting a stiff that hadn't been important for thousands and thousands of years hardly sounded fun.<p>

He showed his identification badge that Shanktooth had given him earlier on, at the museum guard, who looked incredibly bored.

"Oh you're the guy," he said, in Japanese, which made Harry glad he paid the thousand galleon fee to swallow a language bottle for Japanese as opposed to painstakingly trying to learn it. The guard nodded him in and let him pass, as the museum had actually just closed up for the evening.

The woman - matriarch of the Tomb Keeping family had not expected the bumbling boy to be "The Guy," that was supposed to be the amazing cursebreaker and dealer with the dead, but it turned out it was.

Especially when the hot mess that stumbled in had got straight to the point before even introducing himself.

"-I'm here for the Royal Stiff!" he said cheerily, the woman - who had a long conservative gold-lined plain hooded dress and long black hair, looked at him skeptically.

"Oh where are my manners?" said Harry after a minute, feeling eerily like Ron being stared down by Hermione.

Good question, thought the woman wryly.

"I'm Potter, Harry Potter," Bond. James Bond, thought Harry inwardly, resisting the urge to burst into a face-splitting grin. He was here for a corpse, after all.

"Isis Ishtar," said the woman in a serene voice that reminded him of a serious version of Luna Lovegood, as she shook his hand delicately.

"Yep, the one and only Harry Potter, Doctor Death, Necromancer, Cursebreaker extraordinaire here to help, at your service," he said in a fake-bragging manner, hoping to ease the tension. He was never good at this sort of thing, it's why he hated the social aspect of his job. It made him prefer the dead bodies. The ones that only let out the occasional moan and would maybe try to take a solid chunk out of your arse with their teeth. Much easier to deal with.

His colourful introduction seemed to work because the woman let out a laugh that didn't sound forced. Good.

"I'm unaware as to how much you've been told, please, follow me to the back," said the lady, turning around and beckoning Harry with her. Harry quickly relayed what Shanktooth had said, finding it much easier then actual small-talk.

"Isis, I don't know how much longer we can keep him in the back before the cleaner starts asking questions," came the voice of someone that looked directly related to his client. He had longish sandy-blond hair, bored expression and a shamelessly toned up body with no query about showing it. Which made a nice change from conservative wizards and witches he was used to, who's most sexual thing was perhaps going commando under an amazing mess of black robes. In short, the bloke was rather fit.

"Didn't Odion take care of it last time?" queried Isis.

"Yes, but now they're starting to get on me about not being able to vacuum in here," sighed the teenager "-and the moaning noises aren't really helping, wasted fifteen minutes convincing them it's the creaky boards,"

"Thank you, it won't be a problem from here on in,"said Isis appreciatively "-oh and, this is my younger brother, Marik," she said fondly of the seventeen year old.

Marik, whom Harry dubbed as "Fit Marik," in his head, seemed to survey him just as he'd done when he came in the room. The cursebreaker - Harry Potter as his name-tag read - seemed a little on the young side. Barely older then his sister, maybe the same age even - fresh out of whatever schooling he'd had, was the "expert help" they'd been promised. It seemed a little far-fetched, until he saw the business-like gleam, steel itself in the depths of the man's tired eyes. He wasn't bad looking either, rather, he qualified as a 'hot mess' in terms of appearance. Part of him was disappointed, he expect a mad-scientist looking bloke, another part of him was delighted it wasn't an old fart though. He'd had enough of uppity older folk intruding in on his home, culture, and swanning around with the ancient Egyptian stuff as if they were the shit. Professor Kanekura had driven him up the wall, personally he wondered why he bothered helping out. Since Battle City he was a free man, but he couldn't leave the lump load of work to his family, and on the upside, it was no longer confined to his underground home in Egypt.

Harry Potter had a mess of curl-tinged hair that fell just past his earlobes, handsome bangs that seemed to naturally fall over a faded scar on his forehead, and bright green eyes. So green, he let his own stare linger there a minute - as it wasn't a common trait. He had full-lips, but not unusually so, it seemed to fit his overall aristocratically structured face. You could tell that he used to be far thinner then he was now, he seemed to have a lithe build, but a strong one. There was a rather endearing way to way he pinched the bridge of his nose with irritation as the sarcophagus in the room let out a little knocking sound.

"Shh!" he snapped before he could dwell on the fact that telling off a previously-worshipped Pharaoh corpse may or may not offend the family around him.

"Silenco!" they watched curiously as a little blast of magic emitted from the tip of his finger and blasted the sarcophagus quiet.

Marik _really _wished this guy had came sooner, he'd silenced the pharaoh with such_ ease_ that it nearly made his eye twitch.

He had rectangular framed glasses which seemed to irritate his eyelashes, but only amplified his eyes, which Marik did not realize he'd been staring rather gormlessly into.

"I have a device which will teleport the old fella straight to the labs," said Harry cheerily "-so you don't have to worry about that, now, you're welcome to come with us and we can conduct the overview on what I'll actually be doing with your Pharaoh there, because I think the cleaner is getting annoyed," he said.

Isis agreed, and with that, Harry got out his galleon-shaped portkey, which seemed to almost glow, and the three of them linked with each other and the sarcophagus as they were pulled from the back of the museum.

A moment later, a man armed with a vacuum and a yellow hat came in, happy he could finally enter, looked around for any other exit door and scratched his head. He swore there were other museum workers in here a moment ago.

He shrugged, and switched on his Dyson and decided he probably needed more sleep.


	2. Bone Daddy

**The Shadow Doctor**

**- - - A. U, Post DH, ignores parts of the epilogue (like HP/GW for a start!)! Slash! Future Lemon, M rating for that, and for the following: bleak/black-humor, death, desecration of the dead and much more. (also, this is like my "tea time update" story, I'll do it when on my breaks, when bored and have no inspiration for anything else, so I don't even know if it'll go anywhere, should it not, I may even make it adoptable in the future)**

**HP/YGO [Pairings Undecided]. **Summary: Harry Potter has a most unusual job, involving dead people and curses, mainly dead people though. When his job takes him to Japan, he takes on a whole new brand of magic, testing just how far he's prepared to go in his field.

* * *

><p>Chapter Two<p>

He welcomed them into his miniaturized version of a Body Farm facility and the urge to play with empty test tubes was niggling at Marik, who was rather perplexed with the mix of technology and magic all thrown into one lab. The sarcophagus had landed with a thud in the middle of the floor, and after a brief spell, was moved into the table-like set-up in the center which was sealed in transparent casing.

Harry talked quite extensively on it and only Isis was paying full attention to it, once he'd gotten into some technical talk, Marik had since zoned him out and was looking around the room in curiosity. There was runes, books, a box labelled 'sterilized extractors' which was filled to the brim with tweezers of varying lengths in a strange blue liquid. There were test tubes mounted up and what looked eerily similar to a cauldron - though being a wizard, it didn't surprise Marik too much. The rest of the gear looked eerily surgical and what looked like some sort of computer, and various other gizmos.

"There's security all around this place," he talked a bit on it and by the end of it, Isis felt a little more secured by it. They even stuck around for the opening of the sarcophagus - though Marik should have opened the window a little sooner.

"Well a mummy over a five thousand years old aint gunna smell like a rose garden," shrugged Harry.

"Working hours on the project will be subject to when I wake up," said Harry bluntly "-and I'll take time away now and then because working around stiffs 24/7 will put me in hermit mode again. Last time I had a project this big, the days started molding into each other and my supervisor said I hadn't eaten in four days," he said, Isis stared for a moment. He was certainly devoted to his work, anyone could see that, perhaps his youth was not a factor playing against him - he certainly had experience.

"Plus, my apartment is above The Body Farm, 'tisn't ideal," he sighed "-living with your work, especially this kind of work," he grimaced.

"I imagine," frowned Isis "-no, your terms are reasonable, it must be difficult to do this on your own,"  
>Marik seemed to snap to attention at this - he was rather curious that this massive project was given to a lone person.<p>

"Well, it requires a deep understanding of ancient curses, including dark magic, including history - and what it takes to undo it," Harry paused "-there's about a handful of people that qualify,"

"Then there's the raw power to do it I suppose, and I don't charge my employers a ridiculous amount for my services," he seemed to gain a serious glint to his eyes "-and I'm the best at what I do,"

"I'm sure you are," said Isis serenely "-thank you for doing this on such a short notice too Mr Potter, the URF was originally supposed to take the Pharaoh on, until," she gestured to the twitching mummy, "-that little problem,"

Marik walked over to it and observed the Pharaoh, they knew who he was, or rather - his history, but his name and the risk of whether it was actually the Nameless Pharaoh or his father, or father's father, was hard to tell. There had been extensive damage to the cartouche, the only hieroglyphs that were otherwise indicative of an identity only helped to narrow down which dynasty and what family line.

Isis shared this and Harry nodded, following - inwardly thanking Bill for all that he'd learned historically and whatever else he picked up on the job.  
>The mummy itself was mostly exposed, it's blackened bone very visible under dirtied, rotted layers of bandages. Marik hadn't actually seen an exposed, decomposed mummy. He glanced at the finger bones of the skeletal remains, seemed to twitch desperately. Suddenly he was rather glad that it was re-encased in a transparant little chamber as opposed to exposed.<br>It wasn't too hard to imagine, as he sometimes had - about their dead Pharaoh, but it was another entirely disturbing thing to see him and see him move.  
>He flinched as the skull seemed to lull to it's left shoulder bone and composed himself as Potter came up next to him.<p>

"What's up Bone Daddy?" he snorted, the Pharaoh's jaw hung loose after that, which was entirely coincidental - but the idea of it trying to speak back unsettled Marik somewhat.

"Jaw is still active, won't take kindly to tooth sample extraction," noted Harry, "-right, it's quite late, you're welcome to stay but I can call you a cab if you need one," that was one thing he _did _learn about Japan, that and the incredibly cheap bento boxes for those lazy days.

"Thanks, we'll pop in later in the week, call if you need anything from us," said Isis kindly.

Before Marik really realized it, they were already home. He was lying on his bed with a rather haunting image of an animated pharaoh in mind. He wondered, wondered if he should tell Yugi. He wondered if it'd just horrify them or whether they'd see that it was actually quite a viable way of trying to see into the Pharaoh's past, at least, get a name.

Marik had asked Harry a question before they left.

"How will you find out the Pharaoh's identity? I still don't really understand,"

The man in the white coat had smiled and replied with ease.

"I use magic to try to revive DNA samples and send it for testing, failing that, there's a tomb's full worth of items that have a magical significance that can be used for a soul calling ritual,"

"A soul calling ritual?" Marik had never heard of such a thing.

"Yes, they're scarcely done because they're rarely survived if someone completely unrelated is calling a soul this far-gone, that has been passed on for this many years, some don't survive whatever test awaits them," Harry said, eyes with a far-look in them.

"All this to identify the Pharaoh? I thought you mainly did stuff like breaking the curses around him," said Marik.

"I'm a man of many talents, I do many things, - technically, I am a Cursebreaker, but I'm a trained medic first and foremost," Harry responded with ease. He could have been a healer, a mortician, a genuine necromancer even - but instead, he picked The Egyptian Body Farm project. The curses were always so interesting, sometimes the tombs would rain frogs and he'd be brought in on-site, or someone would have an ancient equivalent of the Black Death or suffered a grave Pharaoh's Curse for entering. His work was as historical as it was scientific, truth be told, he wasn't even sure what it was he actually did some days.

"All I know is, it's in the name of history," - twas a mantra passed on from Bill Weasley himself.

Marik let his eyes fall shut - yes, it may have been a matter of history for that man, but for him, for the Pharaoh, for everyone involved who had a missing or blocked up past that stretched thousands of years into ancient times, it was a personal matter.

* * *

><p>Harry hadn't gotten to sleep until about six in the morning and woke up at four in the afternoon. With a barren fridge, it was very apparent that he had to go food shopping. Bleh. Socializing.<p>

Then he remembered The Body Farm downstairs and groaned, suddenly, shopping felt like a good idea.

"You have to stay around alives sometimes, deads will bore you, they wont reply. Stay sane Potter," was the best advice he'd gotten in his field.

Yes, shopping sounded good right now, away from nightmares, mummies and the lab. He was surprised to see Marik and a few friends of his loitering outside, it seemed the guard didn't let them in. Harry stretched the crick in his neck and walked over, still waking-up, the only thing he'd done since awakening was brush his teeth and shower.

"Ah sorry, should have told the bloke to let you in, sorry, security n' that," said Harry walking over.

"It's Fort - fucking - Knox," he said, Marik surprised at the casual swearing, didn't show it "-stepped out for food shopping, trust me it feels hard getting out of there as it is getting in,"

"I thought I'd come see how you settled in, since you only got here yesterday and started instantly," said Marik, well, that was his cover-reason. He was still debating over whether to tell Yugi, or maybe even tell this guy, and get his opinion as an outsider.

"These your friends?" asked Harry, quirking a brow. One of them was a midget who's hair was molested by a rainbow, another had bright, long white hair, there were two gangly boys - one blond, one brown haired and a rather bubbly brown-haired girl.

"Yeah, this is Yugi, Téa, Joey, Tristan and Ryou," he introduced quickly, they all did their respective greeting whilst they analyzed Marik's new acquaintance. New to the area, he'd said. The guy was young, the Bill Cosby sweater didn't help his cause though. Nerdy type, definitely, a cute sort. Eyecatching - even with the bad dress sense.

"I'm Doctor Potter, Harry Potter," he said, ignoring their surprised look at his title.

"We thought maybe we could show you around?" offered Yugi.

"I need to go food shopping, would like some help in that department. As in, where the shops are and possibly carrying bags for this old timer," boring adult stuff.

Marik snorted.

"You're only twenty - probably, right?" responded Marik.

"Nineteen," corrected Harry, they all looked surprised and didn't hide it.

"You're a doctor, and you're nineteen?" said Joey bluntly.

"I took my med exams early - one of the youngest out there, I'm a bona fide surgeon. It meant having no life during study," and time turners, he added silently, lots of time turners, and war. He needed these skills for the after the war. There had been an amazing medic shortage and too many injured in the absolute bloodbath. He was a qualified advanced healer - basically a surgeon, cursebreaker and your all-around good guy.

"I used to deal in emergency cases, a lot of my study came in the practical field when I knew fuck all," he muttered. Marik glanced at the boy, a lot of his whimsy had gone, it was just bored bitterness now. The guy had obviously just got up and was not as pleasant as yesterday in this mood.

"Took the med exams after and passed the bar, worked where I was needed, changed my field. Ended up dealing in alive guys, dead guys and everything in between," he said. Téa was looking at him with a strange look in her eye, a mixture of awe and curiosity.

"Got the diplomas hanging up in The Body Farm if you fancy coming in. I do have a body in there though and it's a bit of a twitcher," then he realized maybe Marik's friends were not that informed on reanimated dead bodies and could be a hundred percent muggle. He quickly added "-hooked up to stuff, you know? Bit traumatizing,"

"We'll take you up on that offer sometime, maybe without the dead guy there," said Joey.

"Yeah, come on, we'll take you to the supermarket," said Yugi, changing the subject, they all began heading down the road, chattering away, asking questions.

Marik slid between Yugi and Ryou, hands in his pockets.

"He's the real deal you know, saw the diplomas," he said idly.

"You mean, you've been up there? Seen - the guy?" the dead guy - Ryou asked.

"Yeah, I'll need to talk to you two about it, it isn't just any dead guy," said Marik quietly, eyes flickering to the Millennium Puzzle around Yugi's neck.


	3. Nothing Happens, But Author's Alive

**The Shadow Doctor**

**- - - A. U, Post DH, ignores parts of the epilogue (like HP/GW for a start!)! Slash! Future Lemon, M rating for that, and for the following: bleak/black-humor, death, desecration of the dead and much more AND there will be it's genuine dark moments - be prepared. (also, this is like my "tea time update" story, I'll do it when on my breaks, when bored and have no inspiration for anything else, so I don't even know if it'll go anywhere, should it not, I may even make it adoptable in the future)**

**HP/YGO [Pairings Undecided]. **Summary: Harry Potter has a most unusual job, involving dead people and curses, mainly dead people though. When his job takes him to Japan, he takes on a whole new brand of magic, testing just how far he's prepared to go in his field.

* * *

><p>Chapter Three<p>

The two boys had been persistent in wanting to see The Body Farm lab, very much so. The wizard thought they did a good job at feigning interest in the actual science of what he did. Harry knew past a doubt that it was probably morbid curiosity more then anything else, Ryou and Marik had been most interested in the exposed corpse of course. They had the same curiosity of the children Harry had once seen a film of, where one asked another "_Hey, you wanna see a dead body?" _- but he couldn't quite remember the name. It would bug him like that time he couldn't remember who the seeker was for the Bulgarian Bulldogs.

Harry was more then happy to oblige, though in reality he knew he should have been a lot stricter with who he let in, it's not like the kid's were going to steal a database computing device that was nailed into the wall. It's not like they could fit the golden sarcophagus in their pockets either.

He noted how they both tried to convince the short, multicolored spike-fro boy to come in with them, but he adamantly didn't want to. The word "corpse" had instantly made him cringe - Harry couldn't blame him, there was a time where he would have had the same reaction. They carried the shopping bags to the guarded door and saw Ryou, Marik and Harry off.

Harry smiled, they had made shopping fun and it felt like he'd made some friends, even if they were a little younger then him.

"Let's drop this stuff off first, my apartment is just above the lab," explained Harry to Ryou, Marik nodded along and watched as the guard let them pass and they were at a chrome elevator

Ryou smiled back even though he felt his knees want to buckle, the shopping was heavy. Marik struggled less and moved with enviable ease, Harry smirked - muscles that weren't just for show. The elevator doors opened to a surprisingly _normal _looking place. There was no wall-art, no nothing, just a bed, covers, lamps and desks and a very nice rug. However, it seemed what was there had been nicely picked out and well-furnished, the place felt barren in the sense that it lacked anything personal that said anything about his personality.

Harry turned to the struggling albino and took the shopping bag that was hands onto his own left, and then took the bag that Ryou had hanging off of his arm. The plastic bag strap had been digging into the delicate pale flesh of his arm and gently lifted it from him. It had left a fading dark red line where it had dug in and without noticing, Harry's warm smooth hand had wrapped over it briefly. A strange moment, likened to a mild electric shock that was bizzarely pleasant - like a tingle where his hand was that shot up the boy's arm.

It had been a brief moment, but the painless fading line on his arm had gone completely as Harry did the whole thing in a sweeping movement that took the burdening bags from him.

"Nice place," said Marik, walking a little more forward past the bed. It was more like a hotel room then an apartment, but it was bigger. The living space was a mix of a bedroom too, and the bathroom was very nice. The kitchenette seemed to have far more then a normal small unit would, squeezing everything a large kitchen would, but had minimal navigation space - for one person to move freely. Oven, microwave, cupboards and a fridge coupled with a freezer - the hotplate was dusty and unused and there incase his oven broke.

"Regular bachelor pad," he laughed as he saw the minibar next to his bed.

"Mhm, it'd be crawling with babes too if it wasn't for the dead bloke downstairs," snorted Harry. He then began stocking the fridge up and let the two sit on his bed and ogle the minibar and television.

"Your TV is _huge!_" said Ryou immediately.

Harry smirked, he'd paid for the apartments to be set up out of his own vault - the one in Egypt was essentially like this. He knew sometimes his job would call him out to places and arranged for all of his muggle work areas to have certain things. In fact, he'd made the list to Sharktooth - and the goblin's never failed or cut corners.

"_What on Earth do you need a widescreen HD 'tee-vee' for anyway?" Shanktooth had asked, and Harry responded without missing a beat._

_"So I can watch adult things in high definition," said Harry. Shanktooth blinked, wasn't that something humans didn't talk about aloud? _

_"Well, that was disgustingly intimate of you to share," said the goblin in a flat monotone._

_"You asked! Besides, don't goblins...?" Harry trailed off at the expression Shanktooth donned and promptly feared for his life and learned that, indeed, goblins do not wank._

Harry blinked out of his memory and turned to see the boys attempt to figure out the overly complicated TV remote, deciding to debate that nugget of information at a later date, as the possible lack of pleasurable genitalia could link to the infamous goblin temper was a theory too mind-blowing to contemplate as he began rummaging the shopping bags for lunchables. And yes, at age nineteen, he thoroughly enjoyed children's lunchables.

"Hey Harry, what's that over there?" asked Marik, glancing up briefly, to see a glass case mounted precariously on top of a wardrobe.

"Shit, thanks for reminding me," said Harry, dropping his lunchable and walking over to the wardrobe and going onto his tip toes to get the heavy glass case which had a curled up, comfortably snoozing serpent.

"I meant to move it before I went to bed but forgot, and forgot this morning," mumbled the boy guiltily.

"Cool, you have a snake!" said Ryou excitedly.

"Yeah, lazy bugger he is," said Harry sourly "All he does is sleep all day, dirty the tank and only wake up for feedings," it wasn't a super awesome magical snake, baby basilisk, boa constrictor, cobra or black mamba. It was a corn snake. Your regular, average, normalish corn snake. It's own sort of exotic, but not amazingly deadly.

"It's ...well he wasn't a present. My co-worker found him and thought it'd be funny to steal my Pringles, empty all of the crisps out of the tube and put him in there as a joke. After the trauma, I quite warmed to him, and kept him. His name is now Pringles," said Harry wryly as the snake woke up and slithered up out of the tank towards his extended arm.

"Pringles?" sighed Marik, he was expecting a cool name, like Balthazar or Amadeus...but Pringles was cute in it's own way.

"Mhm, think he likes you," said Harry, passing the snake over.

_"Very built up human-friend you have, I would quite like to bite into hisss arm, it's juicy looking," _hissed the snake, which Harry's parseltongue picked up on as Pringles curled around Marik's bicep. Well, mused Harry - at least the snake agreed 'Fit Marik' was delicious, even if it was in the literal context of trying to eat him. Pringles wouldn't, of course - under the threat that Harry would have him de-fanged if he ever bit someone without his permission. That was the serpentine equivalent of being castrated, in laymen terms, like having your balls cut. So Pringles was a generally well behaved snake.

"_Don't think much of this one, he smells male but looks like a girl," _hissed Pringles at Ryou, making Harry withhold a smile but made a mental note to berate the snake later for being mean. He was always making mean comments or worse - amusing ones, that made him laugh at inopportune times.

_"Why are they sitting in your mating corner?"_ hissed the snake, referring to Harry's bed, nearly making him jolt out a response in parseltongue. Cheeky snake knew he couldn't respond in parseltongue in polite company.

"_Do you plan to mate with them later? Both of them? One of them? Warn me now because the last time you were in heat, the vibrations woke me up," _hissed Pringles, who's commentary turned lewder while Harry forced himself to stoic-ness and pretending the snake was hissing to show it's affection to his visitors.

"Right, I think Pringles is tired now, I'll show you guys out. Hate to be a downer but I have to actually do work," groaned Harry.

When he showed them out, he looked at the elevator and sighed.

_Screw this, I'll work on Name-tagless Pharaoh later._

* * *

><p>Sure enough, 'later' came.<p>

Now, as much as Harry would downplay the creepiness of his work - the fact that it was creepy in and of itself was an inescapable fact. There were times when he - admittedly, would not go down to the lab at all because he was flat-out sick of seeing it. He'd stay cooped up in the apartment part of the building complex doing what normal lonely nineteen year old males in Japan do, stay in one place and alternate between jacking off and playing 3D Pac-Man but making careful effort not to cross the two. Now had not been one of those days. Pringles threatened to bite him out of bed.

He'd gotten almost nothing from the bones of the Pharaoh - not one miserable morsel of surviving diagnosable human bits. He DID manage to find out something interesting about the nature of what was keeping the Pharaoh twitching. There was no remnant of ba - 'soul' in the Pharaoh, at least, not a royal one, but that didn't rule out the body being royal, but that someone else could easily be trapped in the corpse like a horcrux. That was the most horrifying possibility, the second one being that there was no soul remnant and it was just a highly complicated reanimation magic with a non-royal caster that left their imprint carelessly. In both cases, the magic had been done out of some sort of malice. To not allow a dead body to sleep for eternity as Egyptian's of the time intended so, they could disturb the soul of that person in heaven - the Field of Reeds, and worse case scenario, force them out of the Mouth of the Underworld to track what awoke them and destroy it to go back. To disturb eternal sleep of the body was a crime, like knocking over a headstone or having an enemy cat pee in your cat's litter box.

Despite this minor breakthrough, he was no closer to finding out anything.

So he sighed, turned off the lab light, took the elevator, and began watching the Card Game Channel in his room.

Yawning, he turned to Pringles who slithered onto his pillow next to his head.

"_I hate ssslow work daysss, I feel like I accomplissshed nothing," _hissed Harry tiredly, the snake looked up at him with what the wizard guessed would be pity in his eyes.

"_I know, you sssuck,"_ the snake paused "_-but thatsss okay, mossst humanss do,"_

Harry rolled his eyes, stupid snake. Not realizing that on the TV, was a familiar spiky haired boy in a rather animated game of duel monsters.

Without looking, he hit the off button on his remote and went to sleep oblivious of the fact he'd made friends with the 'King of Games' and other local gaming celebrities, and took solace in the company of an irritating pet snake instead.

"_Night Pringlesss,"_

_"Night Hatchling,"_


End file.
